Walnut and Linden
Chess Set

Made in May 2025 as a birthday gift for a friend.

Not for tournament chess. More for evenings around a table.

The set combines a walnut storage base, an end grain chessboard, and simplified chess pieces made from walnut and linden.

The board works as a lid. Underneath it, every piece has its own place lined with blue fabric.

I did not want a thin flat chessboard. The goal was to make a complete object that could stay in a room even when nobody was playing.

The white pieces are linden. The black pieces are walnut.

I like linden wood. It smells different from most woods, and in Czech culture it carries something familiar and quiet.

The pieces were made without a lathe. At the time I only had a table saw, so the shapes came from cuts, steps, and removed material rather than turned forms.

Because of that, the figures became angular and simplified.

This was the first time I made chess pieces.

The chessboard itself is end grain. Technically, it is close to a glued cutting board, only with much less tolerance for mistakes.

Every square has to stay aligned. Every glue line is visible.

The most difficult part was not the construction itself, but the finish.

The board was finished with shellac. It gave the surface warmth, but in hindsight it was probably not the best choice for this type of board.

If I made the board again, I would probably not use end grain construction. I would glue it normally along the grain and keep the storage base exactly the same.

That part worked.

When closed, the object looked almost exactly the way I had imagined it.